This engagement established a digital strategy and set in motion the sweeping operational changes needed to deliver a next generation digital customer experience.

The Challenge

Hamstrung by legacy technology and processes

Our client, a leading provider of tax preparation software solutions to individuals and professional preparers, committed to reinventing their customer experience to secure and strengthen their position in an evolving digital market.

The client recognized that their strategic assumptions and operational platforms were firmly rooted in a long-gone era when software products were burned on CD-ROMs and delivered by mail. They knew wholesale changes were needed to thrive in a digital environment marked by persistent invention and disruption.

The chief obstacle to achieving their goal was the array of legacy technologies and outdated development processes burdening operations and constraining their ability to respond and innovate to better meet their customers’ expectations and needs.

The approach was two-fold: align the organization around a common vision of what the digitallyenabled customer experience could be, then build the product management capabilities and operational rigor to deliver cleanly and efficiently on that vision.

The Solution

A focus on Digital Customer Experience and Data unlocks insights and fuels innovation

West Monroe focused on converting the client’s core operations from a liability into a differentiator by removing internal barriers between business and technology functions, establishing shared purpose, modernizing platforms, and creating proficient operations.

The core of the solution was to quickly develop the ability to understand how customers were interacting with the client’s systems—a task that could not be solved with Google Analytics or other generalized utilities.

West Monroe identified external customer and internal process pain points to develop a future state model to deliver better customer experience to both consumers and tax preparers. Using tools and methods such as personas and journey mapping, the West Monroe team helped the client build a roadmap to become a more customercentric product management, delivery, and support organization. Through a series of strategic initiatives, a focused approach using modern data capture and analysis was created to help the client move forward.

As a result, West Monroe implemented a cloud-based, high-volume event capture system using an agile development process. The team designed the new platform to reveal the full spectrum of possible events within the system, and provided the software development kit (SDK) to enable the volume of the inputs.

In one month alone, 1 billion events were captured. Within three months, the system unlocked the data necessary to study customer patterns, diagnose customer experience issues, and interact (and provide solutions) to customers in real-time—with no disruption to the business.

The Impact

Adapting and executing with digital agility

West Monroe enabled this large organization to gain alignment on their digital customer experience vision, implement a modern analytics solution for stronger data-driven decision making, use their resources more efficiently, and ultimately move their thinking, products, and operations into the digital world with high confidence of meeting customer expectations.